“What we are seeing right now in the United States is just … well … wait for it … winter,” wrote Marshall Shepherd, director of the atmospheric science program at the University of Georgia and a former president of the American Meteorological Society.

Shepherd wrote that even as climate warms, the seasons will always change to winter and yield frigid weather, snowstorms and blizzards. After all, he said, winter is related to how the Earth is tilted on its axis as it revolves around the sun.

Concludes Shepherd: "For now, the message for this week and the next seven days is that winter is reminding us that it still exists and always will even as our climate warms. Prepare accordingly, stay warm and help others."

Photographer Paul Nicklen, who has been with National Geographic for 17 years, says recording the video was even more heartbreaking. He’s spent his life filming bears and estimates that he’s come across about 3,000 of them, but the animal in his latest video was unlike the rest. In an article about the clip, Nicklen recalled, “We stood there crying — filming with tears rolling down our cheeks.”

Nicklen says he’s often asked why he didn’t do something, but he explains, “Of course, that crossed my mind. But it’s not like I walk around with a tranquilizer gun or 400 pounds of seal meat.” He added, “When scientists say bears are going extinct, I want people to realize what it looks like. Bears are going to starve to death. This is what a starving bear looks like.”

Unfortunately, animals seem to have a very bleak future in front of them. The No. 1 threat to the world’s 22,000 polar bears is climate change, according to a World Wildlife Foundation report. The bears spend the winter months on the ice, where they do a lot of laying around and a whole lot of eating seals; they fast during the summer. But as the winter months have become warmer, it takes longer for the ice to reappear each season, meaning that the animals have less time to eat, and they have to fast for a longer stretch of time. In short, no ice means no seals, which could soon mean no polar bears.

"Soon it will be too late to shift course away from our failing trajectory, and time is running out," scientists wrote in the letter signed by 15,364 of their colleagues from 184 countries. "We must recognize, in our day-to-day lives and in our governing institutions, that Earth with all its life is our only home."

Titled as a "Second Notice," the stern warning comes 25 years after similar concerns were expressed in a letter backed by more than 1,700 scientists. However, as the updated warning points out, things have significantly worsened since then.

Freshwater resources and vertebrate species have dropped by approximately 25 percent since 1960. At the same time, marine dead zones have increased dramatically by 75 percent and carbon dioxide emissions have risen by 62 percent. The human population has also skyrocketed from 3 billion to roughly 7.6 billion.

Furthermore, human activity has "unleashed a mass extinction event, the sixth in roughly 540 million years, wherein many current life forms could be annihilated or at least committed to extinction by the end of this century," the scientists warn.

The only hopeful part of the letter points to the stabilization of the stratospheric ozone layer. According to Newsweek, scientists revealed this month that the hole in the ozone layer, which hovers above Antarctica, is the smallest it has been since 1988.

But this one positive development isn't enough to curb the impending crisis, according to the scientists.

"Humanity is now being given a second notice ... We are jeopardizing our future by not reining in our intense but geographically and demographically uneven material consumption and by not perceiving continued rapid population growth as a primary driver behind many ecological and even societal threats," they wrote.

Drastic solutions are required to solve the coming global crisis, according to the scientists. These include phasing out fossil fuels while encouraging renewable energy sources, transitioning to a more plant-based diet, reducing food waste overall and prioritizing reserves for Earth's land, marine, freshwater and aerial habitats.

"To prevent widespread misery and catastrophic biodiversity loss, humanity must practice a more environmentally sustainable alternative to business as usual," the scientists wrote.

While nations around the world have officially recognized the need to address these concerns and the threat to humanity's existence, the current U.S. administration appears uninterested in heeding such warnings.

President Donald Trump said in June that he would pull the U.S. out of the landmark 2015 Paris climate agreement, joining only two other nations -- Syria and Nicaragua -- which had not signed the international accord.

Instead of addressing greenhouse gas emissions as the Paris accord requires, the White House said it "will promote coal, natural gas and nuclear energy as an answer to climate change,” a decision scientists around the globe have warned against.

“Seasonal employment with the Forest Service is a great way to give back to communities, learn new skills, and perform meaningful work,” regional forester Jim Peña said in a news release this week. “If you are interested in working with a dedicated team of people who take pride in managing our national forests, we encourage you to consider joining the Forest Service.”

A University of Washington research project ran simulations using different combinations for three key factors: the epicenter of the earthquake, how far inland the earthquake will rupture and which sections of the fault will generate the strongest shaking.

The results show that the location at which the earthquake starts matters most, and the scenarios can drastically change depending on where the earthquake hits.

One animation shows a scenario that’s bad for Seattle, in which an earthquake begins off the southern Oregon coast and the fault line breaks north, with seismic waves building up along the way. By contrast, a better scenario for Seattle would actually be an earthquake that begins closer – off the Olympic Peninsula – where the fault line breaks away from the city.

But make no mistake, the magnitude 9.0 scenarios are bad, and models show the ground shaking for 100 seconds. That’s four times longer than it shook during the 2001 Nisqually quake, which, at magnitude 6.8, did plenty of damage and rattled many nerves.

"We know a magnitude 9.0 earthquake occurred in Cascadia in the year 1700, but we didn't have any seismometers or recording instruments at the time," said Erin Wirth, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Washington.

Wirth said scenarios show the level of shaking could be 10 times different depending on where the earthquake begins and the direction in which the fault line ruptures.

Past models have looked at one or two scenarios, but this is the first study with 50 scenarios. The point is to show the wide range of possibilities of a magnitude 9.0 earthquake. The next steps for researchers is to take this information and model the impacts on tsunamis, landslides and tall buildings in Seattle.

They hope that information will help planners and emergency managers prepare for "the big one."

Researchers from Germany recently conducted an experiment, published in PLOS One, to determine how much populations had declined and why.

To do so, they measured the total flying insect biomass, the weight of the insect catch, by using tent-like nets called Malaise traps. Those were deployed in 63 nature protection areas in Germany over the course of 27 years.

After analyzing the results, they found that flying insect biomass had decreased by 76 percent and up to 82 percent in the summers during the time of the study.

In fact, the scientists say their findings suggest “the entire flying insect community has been decimated over the last few decades,” the study read.

Scientists noted the drop occurred regardless of the habitat type, but changes in weather, land use and habitat characteristic were not the reason.

Critics say the plastic pieces are littering California streets blocks from the pop-up museums as they’re carried out on the clothes of museum visitors. The plastic material becomes litter and has the potential to end up in the water, a danger to marine life, KABC reported.

“My concern is that they go down the drains and into the bay, where they will be bite-sized for most fish,” San Francisco resident Johanna Sanders told the San Francisco Gate.

The Museum of Ice Cream, which opened in Los Angeles in April and San Francisco in September, is known for its colorful displays, tasty treats and Instagram-worthy photo backdrops.

According to a Forbes description of the LA location, there’s a “gallery of suspended bananas, ... rooms of giant melted popsicles, big-as-you gummy bears and a swimming pool full of sprinkles.” The San Francisco Gate describes its local pop-up as including “a candy garden, psychedelic rainbow unicorns, a pink rock climbing wall, banana swings, an all-pink diner with a jukebox and a sprinkle pool filled with more than 100 million plastic imitation sprinkles. A circular swimming space even has pink floats and a diving board.”

Both locations feature bright pink walls and interactive exhibits.

“All of the rooms in the museum have things you can eat or smell,” KABC reported.

The museums use plastic for the sprinkles in the pools instead of real, edible ones for sanitary reasons. A spokesperson for the Museum of Ice Cream told the Gate the sprinkles are coated in “antimicrobial germ bloc.”

Museum officials said they’re working to address people’s concerns. They’re working with an environmental specialist and also instructing exiting visitors to shake off excess sprinkles at an “air shower” at the San Francisco location, according to the Gate.

But even still, “guests have been putting sprinkles in their pocket(s) as a memento of their experience in the sprinkle pool,” spokeswoman Shelley Reinstein said.

Eva Holman, with the Surfrider Foundation, a nonprofit environmental organization, said the plastic sprinkles pose risks that need to be taken more seriously.

“If it's on the sidewalk it most likely goes into storm drains and then into the ocean,” Holman told the Gate. “(And) my 5-year-old would think it’s candy. Why wouldn’t a bird on the street think it’s something to consume?”

“Most plastic has a purpose, like bottle caps and food wrappers,” Holman said. “What is the purpose of this tiny piece of plastic other than a selfie moment?”

The Museum of Ice Cream’s Los Angeles location, originally slated to close in May, has had its close date pushed back five times due to popularity. It’s scheduled now to close in December. The San Francisco location will be open until Feb. 13, just in time for lovebirds to take their sweet someone before Valentine’s day. The museum was set to close in October, but officials extended the schedule after tickets sold out in just 18 minutes.

France’s capital city, the world’s most visited city, according to Reuters, plans to ban all petrol and diesel-fueled vehicles by 2030, officials announced Thursday. Paris will encourage commuters who don’t walk, bike or use public transportation to switch to electric cars.

“This is about planning for the long term with a strategy that will reduce greenhouse gases,” Christophe Najdovski, a transportation policy official for the city of Paris, told France Info radio. “Transport is one of the main greenhouse gas producers ... So we are planning an exit from combustion engine vehicles, or fossil-energy vehicles, by 2030.”

According to the CBC, city officials said it was introducing a “feasible and realistic” goal of phasing out of gas vehicles instead of calling the move a “ban” on such cars.

Paris has seen significant amounts of rising air pollution in the last few years. In response, Paris Mayor Ann Hidalgo and government officials have approved “no-car zones, car-free days and fines for drivers who enter the city in cars that are more than 20 years old,” Reuters reported. Officials have also approved days of free public transportation, introduced rentable bikes and electric cars in the city and banned traffic from the popular Champs-Elysees Avenue once a month, among other measures.

Officials hope that France as an entire country will ditch cars dependent on fossil fuels by 2040.

“This government goal affects the whole French territory, rural zones included,” a Paris City Hall statement said. “If we want to achieve this, it implies that the end of diesel and gasoline should take place several years in advance in urban areas, and particularly in big cities.”

The grayish-white seal coat is applied by workers with a squeegee, and is dry a day later. It reflects solar rays instead of absorbing them, as black asphalt and concrete do, thus reducing the temperature of painted roads by as much as 30 degrees, according to Curbed Los Angeles.

Large cities like Los Angeles are subject to what’s known as the heat island effect, in which the temperature of a city is raised overall by all the heat absorbed by man-made roads and surfaces, rendering it hotter than surrounding rural areas by anywhere from 1.8-5.4 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the EPA.

These white-painted roads, known as “cool pavements,” are one of five strategies outlined by the EPA to mitigate this effect. Others include planting more trees and green roofs. According to their report on cool pavements, EPA officials believe that covering 35 percent of streets with the reflective coating could reduce the overall temperature of a city by an average of one degree, which could translate to millions saved in energy costs.

Large, bustling cities have plenty of concrete and asphalt surfaces that act as absorbers of heat. When the sun goes down, that heat can then leak out, causing the temperature to stay more elevated than it otherwise would.

Cool pavements could be a way to keep cities a little cooler in the baking heat of hot summers. And things don’t look to be cooling down any time soon. Many reports are contending the South will be hit hard with heat by climate change, becoming even hotter than it has been. According to the San Antonio Express News, San Antonio in particular is expected to see extra weeks of weather over 100 degrees.